KANGAROO RANGE, Part Two

Written in the early days of kangaroo meat farming. Based loosely on an unsolved true murder, I've provided a possible solution.

Submitted:Sep 18, 2011
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PART TWO:

After the tour of the freezer, Jon-James pulled the
collar of his raincoat up high, stepped out into the relentless
rain and dashed blindly across the yard, almost crashing into the
gate to the meat shed yard. He fumbled with the metal gate for
a few moments, his fingers almost too numb from the cold to be
able to function.

Finally he reached the ranch house, where he found Ruth
Karnacki and her two teenage sons huddled together just inside
the house. He handed them the cricket bat which was sodden with
rain, then explained what had happened at the meat shed.

Ruth was apologetic about having caused him to go out
into the rain for nothing, however, Jon-James assured her that he
would rather be safe and drenched to the skin, than dry and
sorry.

Sneezing into both hands, Jon-James refused Ruth's offer
of a hot lemon

drink and hurried back to the comfort of his warm bed.
However, it seemed as though he had hardly lain back upon the
pillow, when Robin Harper was shaking him awake at the break of
dawn.

"Wakey, wakey," teased Harper, "we've got a full day's
work ahead of us."

Jon-James forced himself up to a sitting position on the
edge of the bed. He yawned widely, rubbed the sleep out of his
eyes, then, while dressing, he informed Harper of his meeting
with Steve Monroe at the meat shed the night before.

"Sounds like a shady customer to me," said Harper,
shrugging off the suggestion that the Ku Klux Klan might have
been involved in the disappearance of Arthur Karnacki. Since,
if Steve Monroe was mixed up in Karnacki's disappearance, it
would make sense for him to find a suitable scapegoat, and Barry
Tottenham's recent claims against theQueenslandPolice Force made the Klan an
obvious choice.

Harper was equally sceptical ofMonroe's criticisms of the Australian
pet food industry.

"The chances that a big manufacturer would risk legal
action by burning down a meat shed, just to keep down the cost of
their meat, must be pretty damn slim."

They put off the subject over breakfast, rather than
upset Ruth who had got up as soon as she heard them moving about.
Despite their protests, she insisted upon making them both a
breakfast of porridge and toast.

After breakfast, the two men, dressed in raincoats, and
sharing a large black umbrella to protect against the teeming
rain, quickly walked out to the meat shed to have a look around.
However, as Ruth had suggested, any possible clues had long ago
been washed away by the rain.

Then, after deciding not to waste time looking round the
large property, since they would need a helicopter to cover the
hundred thousand hectares and were unlikely to find anything due
to the rain; they set out in a Land Rover borrowed from the
Karnackis, to drive into Angumooka to meet their contact officer,
Inspector Tom Thompson.

"And don't go mentioning the Klan to him when we get
there," instructed Harper as he drove along with his nose pressed
almost against the windscreen, in a vain bid to see through the
nearly solid sheet of rain.

"Is that a request, or an official order?" asked
Jon-James.

Having worked with the headstrong young man long enough
to know how futile it was to try to boss him around, Harper said,
"It's an official request."

They had planned to drive down to Angumooka, report to
Thompson, then return toKangarooRangebynoon) orone
p.m.at the latest. However, the pouring rain
reduced visibility to almost nil, so that even with no other
traffic on the mud road, they were forced to drive most of the
way in first gear for fear of skidding off the road. Which
after almost four days and four nights of non-stop rain was
little more than a quagmire.

It was well after noon when they finally reached
Angumooka, having had to stop at least half-a-dozen times to
consult the road map which they had borrowed from the Karnackis,
then futilely try to read the infrequent road signs which were
almost unreadable through the thick, pouring rain. As it was,
when they finally arrived, they almost drove straight through the
tiny town without seeing it, since the "town" was little more
than a general store-cum-post office, police station, Aboriginal
advancement league headquarters, and six or seven single-storey
weatherboard or brick-veneer houses. Jon-James remembered Ted's
remark about it not being a very large town, and thought, 'He
sure wasn't joking!'

They pulled up in front of the general store, trying to
park as close to the veranda as possible, so that they would not
get too wet as they made their dash from the Land Rover.

They made their way along the creaky wooden veranda to
the small, two-room police station, which had been a green
grocery in the town's more prosperous gold rush days at the turn
of the century. The front store had been converted into the
station proper, with fruit stands replaced by a small desk and
two three-drawer filing cabinets; the back fruit storage area had
been converted into the rarely used lock-up.

After identifying themselves and going over the few clues
that Thompson -- a giant of a man, one hundred and eighty
centimetres tall, with a barrel-like chest -- had uncovered,
despite Harper's warning, Jon-James raised the subject of the Ku
Klux Klan.

Thompson seemed shocked, and as loath to discuss the Klan
as Harper had been.

"Anyway what would the Klan have had against Karnacki?"
demanded Harper, seated on one of the two high-backed wooden
chairs in front of desk. "They only persecute blacks, and
whatever else Karnacki may have been, he was as white as you or
I."

"Besides, for the most part the Klan are just decent
white folk concerned about the blacks taking over their
livelihood," insisted Thompson, taking Harper and Jon-James both
by surprise. "And can you blame them, with bastards like
Michael Mansell forever screaming for more more more for the Abos
and less less less for the rest of us?"

Sensing that he had gone too far, Thompson hurried to
say, "At any rate you can forget about the Ku Klux Klan. They
had no reason to harm Karnacki. It's much more likely to have
been the bloody Abos. They hang aroundKangarooRangelike
vultures, looking for handouts."

"Handouts?" asked Jon-James, surprised. "Steve Monroe
said that they worked for him and Karnacki as kangaroo
shooters."

"Fat chance," said Thompson. "Give an Abo a gun and
you'd end up with a black boy with a gunshot wound in his own
stupid foot or belly. If you really want to track down who
killed Karnacki, I suggest you talk to some of the local blacks.
They hated his guts."

"If he's dead," said Robin Harper.

"Oh he's dead all right," said Tom Thompson with
authority.

"Why would the Aborigines want to kill him?" asked
Jon-James.

"I don't know the cause," admitted Thompson, "but the
local blacks have had it in for Karnacki ever since he first came
here. To the point of poisoning roos so he couldn't sell them
for pet food, and they even burnt down his original meat cold
storage shed."

Jon-James looked up surprised and said, "Steve Monroe
blamed that on the pet food manufacturers."

Harper shook his head ruefully and Tom Thompson said,
"Yeah, well he would, wouldn't he. He's a black lover from a
long way back."

They talked for a few minutes more, then Harper and
Jon-James returned to the veranda outside, shivering at the icy,
biting cold.

"I thought I told you not to mention the Klan?" said
Harper, as he pulled up the collar of his raincoat, ready to make
a dash for the Land Rover.

"I'm sorry," said Jon-James, unconvincingly, "I didn't
realise that it was an order. I thought it was just an official
request."

Harper gave Jon-James a sharp look, then dashed out into
the teeming rain, slipping and sliding in the deep mud. He got
as far as the car door, when he realised that the younger man was
no longer with him. "Where the...?" he muttered, looking around
just in time to see Jon-James step through the doorway into the
Angumooka Aboriginal Advancement League headquarters.

'Oh no!' thought Harper. He stood in the rain for a few
moments, then, shrugging, he opened the car door and stepped
inside to await the return of the headstrong young man.

Jon-James introduced himself to the two Aborigines inside
the small office, and was embarrassed, and pleased, when they
recognised him from his police papers as the agent who had
rescued the young Aboriginal air hostess from the terrorists
three months earlier.

"We all think it was a crime the way that judge treated
you, Mr Spencer," said the pretty, teenage secretary-cum-tea
lady, Jennie Murambi, flashing him a toothy grin of
welcome.

The other Aborigine was a tall, deathly thin, grey-haired
old man who identified himself as Harry Jumbajumbd, after
seconding the kindly words of Jennie.

Sipping coffee made on an ancient pot-bellied stove by
young Jennie, they made small talk for a few minutes, then,
tentatively Jon-James mentioned Tom Thompson's remarks about the
local Aborigines hating Arthur Karnacki.

Jumbajumbd -- or Jumba as he told Jon-James to call him
-- seemed offended by the suggestion and Jon-James felt that if
it had not been for the very warm welcome that he had just been
given, the old man might have ordered him to leave.

"On the contrary," said Jumba, "the local Aborigines have
a great respect for Arthur. He and Steve Monroe were the first
whites in this area to ever treat us as their equals.

"In fact many of the local Aborigines owe their whole
livelihood to Arthur, who they affectionately call The
KangarooMan. Before Arthur
set upKangarooRange, the sole income from, roo
shooting went to white shooters, who had forced the pet food
manufacturers not to buy from Aborigines, by threatening to
boycott them. When Arthur came along, he stopped all that. He
organised the shooters so they'd get a fair price for their roos
and insisted on treating black and white shooters equally. He'd
buy roos from anyone and pay top dollar, just so long as the
carcasses were top quality."

"What did the white shooters think of that?" asked
Jon-James, sitting on a three-legged stool in front of Jumba's
paper-laden desk.

"Some of them resented it at first, thought they'd lose
part of their income to Aboriginal shooters. Fortunately most
of them soon woke up that even if they each sold less carcasses
than before, they were still better off, because Arthur paid two
or three times as much as the pet food companies had
done."

"So most white shooters accepted their Aboriginal
counterparts?"

"At least grudgingly. But there were a few who just
couldn't stand to see ever black people getting fair treatment.
The worst of them are three brothers: Jerry, Danny, and Sammy
Ruxtable. The Ruxtable brothers are founding members of the
Angumooka branch of the Ku Klux Klan. They use as an excuse the
antics of Aboriginal agitators like Michael Mansell, claiming
that they have to defend their rights to an income. But the
truth is that all three of the Ruxtables have a far better income
than any of their rival black shooters. They get paid for their
roo shooting, plus pick up full unemployment benefits as well,
plus Jerry Ruxtable gets a TPI payment from the government for a
back injury that he got in the Vietnam war -- no doubt while
running for safety!"

"Well, if he is totally and permanently incapacitated,
how does he get employment benefits as well?" asked
Jon-James.

"He shouldn't," agreed Jumba, "but I guess there's a
failure to communicate between the CES computers and the
Department of Defence computers." He laughed, then said, "Ah
the wonders of white man's magic." He sipped his coffee then
said, "Anyway, the Ruxtables have started to give the local
Aborigines a hard time over the last couple of years, pretending
they have to fight for their rights."

"What about Inspector Thompson?" asked Jon-James.
"Hasn't he been able to break up the Klan, or at least keep them
in order?"

"There isn't a real lot he can do, since they haven't
officially killed anyone yet. Although there has been an
occasional young buck disappear, every two or three months, over
the last couple of years."

"What has Thompson done about that?"

"There's not a lot he can do. Whenever he's interviewed
the Ruxtables, they've always claimed the Aborigines must have
upped and gone walkabout."

"I always thought the walkabout was a marriage ceremony
or something?" said Jon-James.

"That's right," agreed Jumba, grinning in pleasure at
Jon-James' knowledge. "In the days before white settlement, the
Aborigines lived in small tribes of no more than forty or fifty
individuals. So, to prevent too much inbreeding from occurring,
once a year we would congregate in large groups of a dozen or
more tribes, then the marriageable males could select suitable
brides from other tribes. Any males who didn't pick a bride
would have to wait another year for his next chance. Nowadays,
when most Aborigines live together on settlements with hundreds
of people together, there is no need for walkabout and it is no
longer practised."

"Did you tell that to Thompson?"

"Yes, but he wasn't particularly interested. I'm afraid
our local policeman doesn't have a lot of time for the troubles
of his black constituents."

"Yes, I've noticed that," admitted Jon-James. He took a
sip of coffee, then said, "Steve Monroe said that Karnacki had a
bee in his bonnet about the Klan."

"That's right," agreed Jumba. "Most of the local whites
have enough sense not to actively support the Klan, but Arthur
and Steve are the only two with enough sense to actively campaign
against the Klan.

"In fact Arthur was warned off once or twice by a
mysterious 'concerned citizen' after he had given one or two
lectures too many in public against the evils of the Ku Klux
Klan."

"Could that have been the cause of his
disappearance?"

"Possibly, I suppose. It would be stupid for the Klan
to draw attention to themselves by abducting or killing Arthur,
but then the Ruxtable boys have always been pretty dam stupid.
So much so that I've often wondered whether they might be just
figureheads for someone else."

"A secret Klan leader?"

"Yes, someone smart enough to keep the Klan more or less
in order and out of the eye of the media."

Jon-James thought about this for a moment, looking about
the boxes of filing cards and newspaper clippings which were
stacked around the walls of the small office, then said, "I can't
help wondering just how genuine Karnacki might have been in his
protests against the Klan in public, it goes against what Steve
Monroe said about him being a very private person."

"I don't think there's any doubt that he was genuine.
Arthur was a German Jew who spent three years inBelsenconcentration camp in World War
Two. He absolutely hated the Nazis, and all types of fascists.
The Klan and the Nazis might not be quite the same thing, but
close to it. They're both ultra-fascist organisations which
virtually worship money as a religion, power as a religion, and
racial bigotry as a religion. So if they're not quite
identical, they're at least ninety-nine percent identical. To
the point where it wouldn't make sense for an American black not
to hate the Nazis, or a German Jew not to hate the Ku Klux
Klan."

They made small talk for a few minutes more, with
Jon-James embarrassed as Harry Jumbajumbd and Jennie Murambi
again congratulated him for rescuing the Aboriginal air hostess,
before finally Jon-James said his goodbyes and stepped out onto
the wooden veranda outside the small office.

Jon-James saw Harper looking bored and petulant seated
behind the steering wheel of the Karnackis' Land Rover, and
started to step out into the rain, when he heard the sound of
footsteps behind him. Turning round quickly, he saw the
towering form of Inspector Tom Thompson, looking very sour-faced,
as though he were looking at something slimy.

Colouring, but trying to keep the anger out of his voice,
Jon-James said, "oh I don't know, he told me a few useful
things."

"Such as?"

"Such as he helped me to rule out a strange notion I had
that Karnacki might have been the secret leader of the local Ku
Klux Klan."

"Secret leader?" asked Thompson, wide-eyed with
amazement.

"That's right. It seems that three bothers -- Jerry,
Danny, and Sammy Ruxtable -- are figurehead leaders of the local
Klan. So I had wondered if Karnacki might have been the real
leader, and if the local Aborigines might have found out and
murdered him as a warning to the other local Klan
members."

"I doubt it, Karnacki was a black lover like his partner,
Monroe. Besides, the biggest enemy the blacks in this country
have isn't the Klan, but themselves. They're all a pack of
no-hoping scroungers, grown fat and lazy on government handouts.
They wouldn't have the guts or ability to abduct someone. If
the Abos are involved, it's more likely a lone black who did it
for the money."

When Jon-James looked surprised, Thompson explained,
"Karnacki made it a habit to always pay for roo carcasses in
cash, and as a consequence he carried a large wad of up to
$12,000 of rolled up bank notes on him everywhere he went. So,
my advice to you is forget the Klan and look for that money. If
an Abo took it, it won't be very long before he starts lashing
out buying grog. All the blacks around here are hopeless
alcos."

Jon-James thought about this advice for a few moments,
then said, "Thanks, but I think at this stage the Klan are still
the main suspects." He looked up at the sky, which was still
unleashing its torrential rain, and said, "There's not a lot more
I can do today, but I think I'll go over to have a talk with the
Ruxtable brothers first thing tomorrow."

Looking alarmed, Thompson started to speak, then changed
his mind.

"You sure took your time," said Robin Harper, as
Jon-James finally returned to the Land Rover.

On the drive back toKangarooRange, Jon-James told Harper what he had
learnt from Harry Jumbajumbd and Tom Thompson.

When they mentioned the wad of cash to Ruth Karnacki, she
said, "Well yes, he did sometimes carry huge amounts of money
about on him. But other times he only had a few hundred
dollars, so there's no way an attacker would have known when it
was best to rob him."

"Besides," said Jon-James, "the money doesn't explain his
disappearance. A robber could have just knocked him out, or
killed him on the spot."

The next day, despite protests from Robin Harper, who
still thought that Jon-James was onto a false trail, the two
agents drove out to the Ruxtables' "farm" after getting
directions from the Karnackis.

Actually the property was nothing more than a dilapidated
plasterboard two-bedroom structure, sitting upon a half hectare
of land. On the outside the house looked abandoned, with two or
three sheets of corrugated iron having fallen onto the overgrown
native grass, leaving gaping holes in the roof. Inside things
were even worse. Empty beer bottles, cans, and TV-dinner trays
were scattered about the rooms, mingling with cooking pots placed
around the floor to collect the rainwater that poured in through
holes in the ceiling. The furniture was ancient and dust
coated, and the rickety couch in the lounge room-cum-third
bedroom was missing the legs on one end and had to be propped up
by a stack of clay bricks. And the complete absence of doors
between the rooms meant that you could have no privacy, even
while in the bath or toilet.

The three Ruxtables were every bit as unruly as their
house. All three men sported three-day growths, large
beer-bellies and gave off an almost overpowering level of body
odour.

At first the Ruxtables denied any knowledge of the local
Ku Klux Klan. But after badgering from Jon-James they admitted
to being leaders of the local branch and resolutely seconded Tom
Thompson's comment that the Klan's only intention was to assure a
fair go for blacks and whites alike.

"So long as the Abos don't try to get any unfair
advantages over us, they've got nothing to fear from us,"
insisted Danny, the eldest of the three brothers.

The brothers denied any knowledge of what had befallen
Arthur Karnacki, and seconded what Ruth had said about him not
always carrying large amounts of money around with him.

Apart from this, they were unable to get any real
information or reaction out of the three brothers, until
Jon-James mentioned that since they made a good living shooting
kangaroos, they were not eligible for employment benefits, which
would have to be cut off.

"Plus you may have to pay money back to the government
for the time that you were getting the dole and shooting," said
Jon-James to the obvious anger of all three brothers who were
clenching and unclenching their hands, barely able to contain
their rage. "Then there's the matter of your TPI," he said to
Jerry Ruxtable. "Totally and permanently incapacitated means
that you cannot take on any work, even part-time, and cannot
receive employment benefits either. Both of which you have been
blatantly doing."

"Get out!" shouted Jerry Ruxtable, finally losing his
temper and advancing upon the two agents. "Get out, before I
throw you both out. I don't have to take that from you right
here in my own home!"

Jon-James and Harper started to walk toward the front
door, sidling rather than present their backs to Jerry, who
screeched at them, threatening violence, all the way to the door
and back to the yard.

As they moved toward the Land Rover, he ran after them
and shouted, "We'll see what Tom Thompson has to say about you
two and your sneaking, meddling ways!"

"I wonder what he meant by that?" said Jon-James as he
slammed the car door behind him, locking out the sounds of Jerry
Ruxtable.

"Just an idle threat," insisted Harper, although Danny
and Sammy Ruxtable were doing everything they could to shut up
their brother, before he said anything else.

Back atKangarooRange, Jon-James sat at the phone stool,
nursing what looked like a black plastic suitcase. He opened
the case to reveal a laptop PC complete with external modem,
which he connected to the Karnacki's telephone. Then he logged
onto A.S.I.O.'s $80 million IBM MMX computer, using a brief case
sized terminal which they had brought with them from Canberra,
fed in information about the three Ruxtable brothers, and carried
out his threat to get them all thrown off the CES listing and
Jerry off the TPI.

But the blond secret service agent was not the only one
to carry out his threat. That night they received a warning
from the Ruxtable brothers.

Since there was nothing to do in the evenings, with the
constant rain even interfering with the television reception, the
two men had gone to bed early. However, they had hardly fallen
asleep, when they were awakened by shouting.

Sitting up upon the edge of his bed in the dark,
Jon-James at first thought that it was the Karnackis shouting.
However, he soon realised that the ululation was coming from
outside the house.

Walking across to the four-paned window, the two men
looked outside and saw the surrounding countryside lit up with a
hundred petrol-soaked torches which burnt brightly despite the
pouring rain which drenched the pointed white masks, and ankle
length white gowns that the local Ku Klux Klan members wore as
they stood around the front of the house, shouting for the two
agents to come outside and face them.

"See what you get for stirring," said Harper, more from
fear than anger.

Jon-James on the other hand seemed almost preternaturally
calm, as he reached into his suit coat and extracted the .457
Smith and Wesson magnum revolver.

"Where the hell did you get that cannon from?" asked
Harper, drawing out his own much smaller .38 snub nosed revolver.
"You're not even licensed to carry a handgun at the
moment."

"So arrest me," said Jon-James caustically.

Turning toward the door at the sound of wood breaking
downstairs, they saw Ruth Karnacki highlighted in the darkened
doorway.

"Don't worry," she said, "that's just Len and Ted
breaking open the gun cabinet, to get out Arthur's
shotguns."

Ten minutes later they stood near the front door carrying
double-barrel shotguns, and boxes of cartridges. Despite being
told to keep well out of sight, Ruth Karnacki stood just behind
the door, peeping out from behind the voile curtains of the
window by the door, as her eldest son, Len, and Robin Harper
strode outside, guns at the ready, to meet the hooded
men.

As the two men stepped out onto the wooden veranda, four
hooded figures stepped forward to meet them. Three of them were
obviously the Ruxtable brothers, a fact confirmed when Danny
said, "Bring out that trouble making bastard, Spencer. He's the
one we're after."

"What do you want him for?" asked Len, following
Jon-James' instructions to stall for time.

"Just bring him out!" ordered the fourth hooded figure in
a gruff voice which they didn't immediately recognise. A giant
of a man, he was obviously the secret Klan leader that Harry
Jumbajumbd had suspected.

"We just want to teach him not to go meddling into other
peoples' business," said Jerry Ruxtable.

"What do you plan to do to him?" asked Len.

"Don't worry," assured Jerry, "we don't intend to hurt
him much."

"Just break both his arms and both his legs three or four
times each," said Sammy Ruxtable, drawing sniggers from the crowd
of hooded men.

"He's not here," said Harper, holding the shotgun so that
it was pointed midway between Jerry Ruxtable and the secret Klan
leader.

"He's hiding in the house!" insisted Danny
Ruxtable.

"Did you kill my father?" demanded Len Karnacki.

"That's right," agreed Jerry, having to shout to make
himself heard above the sound of the teeming rain.

"Shut up, you idiot!" ordered Sammy Ruxtable.

"It doesn't matter now," said the leader in an ominous
tone. "Let them know."

"Because he helped the Aborigines get a better go around
here?" asked Len.

Jerry snickered, then said, "Sure we hate the Abos, but
that has nothing to do with why we killed him."

"Then why?" pleaded Len, needing to know.

"Why don't you ask your mother?" said the Klan leader,
catching a glimpse of Ruth Karnacki through the window. "She
knows why we did it."

Len and Harper both looked shocked and half turned toward
the open front door, to face Ruth as she stepped out onto the
rain-slickened veranda.

"Mum?" asked Len, riddled with doubt.

Ruth put a comforting hand on her son's left shoulder,
and said, "Your father was a German Jew. He spent three years
inBelsenconcentration camp
during the second world war...."

"Yes mum, I know..." began Len, before being shushed by
his mother.

"While he was in there, he saw his father, two brothers
and three cousins all murdered by the Nazis. Later he found out
that his mother and sister had both been murdered atAuschwitz. Your father himself was due
to be executed when the American troops finally overranBelsenand liberated the
inmates.

"When your father was released, he was a broken man,
without purpose in his life. Then after the war, the Americans
spent years tracking down and arresting escaped Nazis, and
suddenly Arthur had a purpose in life: to avenge his murdered
family! He worked with the Americans for five years. Then was
approached by the MOSSAD: the Jewish secret service. He worked
for the MOSSAD for twenty long years, helping to track down
dozens of minor Nazis and half-a-dozen or so of the big fish, and
even had a hand in the capture of Adolf Eichmann in
1962.

"But after a quarter of a century he decided that he'd
had enough. The hurt of what had been done to him would never
stop, but at least he had burnt out his need for revenge. So
your father and I married and set out to build a new life
together. ButWest Germanywas not a good place for Jews in 1970, there were already
rumblings of the rise of the Fourth Reich, with the new
Hitler-youth heralding that madman as a German martyr.

"So, since Australia had virtually opened the floodgates
to immigrants from the early 1950s, we decided that this was as
good a place as any to start again, half the world or more away
from the terror of the Nazis. Or so we thought...."

"But what you forgot was that the floodgates were also
open to Nazis, who fled fromGermanytoAustraliain the
hundreds in the late 1940s and early 1950s," said the Klan
leader. "Recently the local Nazis discovered who Karnacki was,
and since they didn't have the means of taking care of him, they
asked us to do it for them.

"We're not completely aligned with the Nazis, but we do
share certain sympathies, such as recognising the need to keep
certain inferior races in their place. So we readily agreed to
help them out by killing Karnacki."

As they were talking, the crowd of hooded men began to
grow restless as they were drenched to the skin in the pouring
rain, so their leader said, "Anyway, enough of this; now where is
Jon-James Spencer?"

"Right behind you!" said a voice from behind the crowd.
Turning, they saw Ted Karnacki holding a double-barrel shotgun in
his hands, and Jon-James holding the large Smith and Wesson .457
magnum revolver.

The crowd started to move toward the two men, so Ted
fired a warning shot over their heads. As the crowd hesitated,
not having brought firearms themselves, their leader ordered,
"Get them! Get them! and they moved forward.

Jon-James cocked the magnum revolver, with a loud noise
like someone cracking their knuckles, and the crowd hesitated
again.

"For God's sake he won't dare to shoot you," insisted
their leader, "he's already on suspension for killing five men,
he's not even supposed to have that thing."

The crowd began to move forward again, so Jon-James fired
a warning shot. In the rain it sounded like a flash of thunder
and the crowd stopped in its tracks again.

"He's only bluffing!" shouted their leader and the crowd
moved forward once more.

Jon-James raised the handgun and sighted at the chest of
the nearest Klan member and ordered, "Stop, or I'll
shoot!"

As the man began to swing his burning torch like a club,
Jon-James started to pull the trigger but then stopped, frozen
for a second with doubt as he remembered the words of the
magistrate three months ago, "You're a trigger-happy killer, no
better than the men you slay!" He wondered if it was true? If
he really was too fond of killing?

The flaming torch flew out of the man's hand, narrowly
missing Jon-James' head as flew over his left shoulder.

The Klan member shrieked and flew backward, propelled by
the force of the magnum bullet which ripped a hole the size of a
fist through his chest.

For a few seconds the crowd stopped and stood staring
down at the bloody body that lay in the mud at their feet. Then
they charged forward once more determined to reach the secret
service agent this time.

Jon-James fired three more times, and Ted Karnacki fired
both barrels of the shotgun into the onrushing crowd.

Three men fell to Jon-James' revolver, half-a-dozen fell
screaming to the ground as the shotgun, at point blank range, cut
a swathe through them.

Shocked and disheartened by the carnage that had befallen
them, the other Klan members fell back. Some turned and ran
into the surrounding bush. But the majority stood still and
allowed themselves to be taken into custody.

"You'd better get our friend Thompson on the blower,"
said Robin Harper, fifteen minutes later as they locked the last
of the Klan members inside the meat shed, which they were using
as a temporary lock-up.

"No need," said Jon-James, reaching up to pull the white,
pointed mask off the head of the secret Klan leader.

"Inspector Thompson?" said Len Karnacki, in
amazement.

"How did you know?" asked Tom Thompson.

"I wondered when you were so vocal defending the Klan.
Then when I heard you speak, I thought I recognised your voice.
And when I spoke to you yesterday you contradicted yourself badly
when you started off saying the local blacks hated Karnacki's
guts, then ended up accusing him of being a 'black lover'. But
the clincher was when you said that I didn't have a licence
currently to carry a handgun. No one around here knew that
except you and Rob, and I could see him standing on the veranda
near Ruth and Len, so it had to be you."

Jon-James used PC and modem to communicate with the
master computer at A.S.I.O. headquarters in Canberra, to arrange
for police helicopters to be sent overnight to pick up the more
than eighty prisoners.

* * *

A.S.I.O Headquarters,Canberra, Early March
1999

Jon-James stood ogling the willowy blonde secretary
sitting at the desk before him.

After a moment the phone buzzed on her desk. She picked
up the receiver, then smiled at Jon-James and said, "You can go
in now."

The inner office looked almost like a small library with
hardbound books in shelves covering most of three walls.
Directly in front of the door was a large desk at which said
Jon-James's immediate superior, Sir Leon Carter, a tall, thickset
man in his early seventies who looked at least a decade younger
than his years.

Indicating a manilla folder on his desk, Carter said,
"I've just been looking over Robin Harper's report of the
Karnacki case ... congratulation on a job well done."

"What will happen to Thompson?" asked Jon-James, seating
himself in front of the huge black marble-topped desk.

"He's being transferred."

"For trial you mean?" asked Jon-James.

Carter looked down at his hands as though ashamed to look
the younger man in the face, and said, "No, there isn't going to
be any trial. Officially the seven Ku Klux Klan members that
you and young Ted killed are responsible for the abduction and
possible murder of Arthur Karnacki."

"You're going to whitewash it?" asked Jon-James.

"We can't afford to have another scandal at the moment,"
explained Carter, almost pleading with Jon-James to understand.
"Not with the ongoing embarrassment over Barry Tottenham's claims
about theQueenslandPolice
Force."

"Which apparently are true?"

"Yes," conceded Carter. "But part of the deal we made
with Thompson and his cronies was that they give us the evidence
we need to force the Klan members out of the top positions in the
force. We intend to weed the Klan completely out of
theQueenslandPolice Force.
As for you, we've managed to convince Judge Jenkins to see the
error of his ways, so, if it's any consolation at all, you can
return to official Federal Police duty immediately."

"No, no it isn't!" said Jon-James in disgust as he stood
and turned to storm out of the office.